Michigan Drone Laws (2026): Privacy Statute, Preemption, and Warrants

Michigan is unusual: it has both a genuine civilian drone-privacy statute and one of the country's broadest state laws barring cities and townships from regulating drones. A landmark 2024 Michigan Supreme Court ruling also narrowed what protection a warrant requirement actually provides against local government drone surveillance.

Jurisdiction scope: This article addresses drone law in Michigan under the state's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Act (MCL 259.301 et seq.), the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act's hunting provisions, and controlling Michigan case law on drone-obtained evidence, plus the federal FAA and shoot-down framework that applies nationwide. It does not cover FAA flight-operation rules in depth or drone law in other states; see the drone laws by state hub for other jurisdictions.

How the FAA and Michigan Law Divide Authority Over Drones

Federal law classifies every drone as an aircraft, which puts flight altitude, pilot certification, airspace authorization near airports, and Remote ID broadcast under the Federal Aviation Administration's exclusive authority (14 CFR Part 107 for commercial and government flights, 49 U.S.C. § 44809 for recreational flights). Michigan cannot and does not try to regulate where in the sky a drone may fly. What Michigan does regulate, more thoroughly than most states, is what an operator does with a drone once it is airborne: harassment, privacy invasion, restraining-order violations, hunting interference, and whether local government itself may deploy a drone without a warrant. The FAA's 2023 fact sheet on state and local UAS regulation draws this same line nationally; see the drone laws by state hub for how it plays out elsewhere.

Michigan's Civilian Drone Privacy Law: MCL 259.322

Michigan's Unmanned Aircraft Systems Act, enacted as Act 436 of 2016 and codified starting at MCL 259.301, goes further than most states' general trespass and nuisance law. MCL 259.322 prohibits four categories of conduct: operating a drone to harass an individual, as harassment is defined by Michigan's stalking statutes (MCL 750.411h and MCL 750.411i); operating a drone within a distance of a person that would violate a personal protection order if the operator did so in person; capturing photographs, video, or audio recordings of an individual in a manner that invades their reasonable expectation of privacy, a provision that cross-references MCL 750.539j, Michigan's voyeurism section covering surveillance or images of a person clad only in undergarments or of unclad genitalia, buttocks, or breasts, and that separately reaches any drone capture invading a reasonable expectation of privacy; and, for a registered sex offender, using a drone to follow, contact, or capture images of a person in violation of their sentencing conditions. A violation of these provisions is a misdemeanor under MCL 259.323, punishable by up to 90 days in jail, a $500 fine, or both. That is a real, enforceable civilian privacy statute, not just a law-enforcement warrant rule, which puts Michigan ahead of many neighboring states on paper.

Two neighboring provisions criminalize drone conduct that has nothing to do with privacy. MCL 259.321 makes it an offense, carrying the same MCL 259.323 misdemeanor penalty, to knowingly and intentionally operate a drone in a manner that interferes with the official duties of law enforcement officers, firefighters, emergency medical services personnel, search and rescue personnel, or state or local corrections officers. MCL 750.45a reaches further: knowingly and intentionally using a drone in a manner that interferes with the operations of a key facility, a correctional facility, or another law enforcement facility is a felony punishable by up to 4 years in prison, a fine of up to $2,500, or both, and once such a facility is listed on the FAA's registry of fixed site facilities under section 2209 of the 2016 FAA extension act, simply hovering a drone over it is prohibited. That felony does not apply to a commercial operator flying in compliance with FAA regulations, authorizations, and exemptions.

Michigan Preempts Nearly All Local Drone Ordinances

Michigan takes the opposite approach from many states on local control: rather than letting cities and townships pass their own drone rules, MCL 259.305 largely preempts them. The statute provides that, except as expressly authorized by statute, a political subdivision shall not enact or enforce an ordinance or resolution that regulates the ownership or operation of unmanned aircraft. That opening clause is part of the rule: the preemption gives way wherever another statute expressly grants local authority. MCL 259.305(2) supplies the best-known carve-out, letting a political subdivision that already bans nonemergency motor vehicles in a given area also prohibit drone operation that interferes with the safe use of a horse in a commercial activity there, subject to its own exceptions for newsgathering, insurance, utility work, and law enforcement. MCL 259.305(3) preserves a subdivision's authority to promulgate rules for its own use of drones, such as a police or fire department's fleet, since that is internal governance rather than regulation of private operators. And MCL 259.305(5) provides that where the act conflicts with Michigan's hunting-drone statutes, MCL 324.40111c and MCL 324.40112, those sections control. In practice, this means a Michigan resident cannot look to a local ordinance for drone protection beyond what state law already provides; the fight over what conduct is restricted happens in Lansing, not city hall.

Does Police Need a Warrant to Fly a Drone Over My Property in Michigan?

Michigan has not enacted a law enforcement drone-warrant statute comparable to those in Minnesota, Illinois, or Virginia, so a warrantless drone flight by police is analyzed under ordinary Fourth Amendment case law, on a fact-specific basis.

Michigan does have one statutory warrant condition on government drone use, but it does not reach police. MCL 259.307 bars a state department, agency, board, or commission from using a drone to conduct surveillance of a facility it regulates unless the owner or operator has given express consent, the agency is acting under a valid search warrant and the flight is strictly limited to the subject matter and scope of that warrant, the agency has reason to believe there may be an imminent threat to public health, safety, property, or the natural resources and the flight is strictly limited to investigating that threat, or the flight is inspecting a roadway, highway, airport, airport approach corridor, port, or similar infrastructure. MCL 259.307(6) then removes law enforcement from the section entirely: it does not apply to a law enforcement agency operating a drone as part of a law enforcement investigation.

The Michigan Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Long Lake Township v. Maxon, 15 N.W.3d 118 (Mich. 2024), shows why the remaining constitutional protection can be thinner than it sounds. Long Lake Township hired a drone operator to photograph a resident's property repeatedly over several years to support a zoning and nuisance enforcement action, without a warrant or the homeowners' permission. A 2021 Court of Appeals panel held the flights were an unreasonable warrantless search and ordered the images suppressed, Long Lake Twp v Maxon, 336 Mich App 521 (2021), but the Michigan Supreme Court vacated that decision in 2022 and sent the case back to the Court of Appeals to address whether the exclusionary rule applies at all; on remand, the Court of Appeals assumed a Fourth Amendment violation rather than deciding one had occurred. The Supreme Court took the same approach in 2024. It assumed, without deciding, that a violation may have occurred, then held that the exclusionary rule, the remedy that normally keeps illegally obtained evidence out of court, may not be applied to civil enforcement proceedings that effectuate local zoning and nuisance ordinances and seek only prospective, injunctive relief. The drone photographs stayed admissible against the homeowners.

That limitation is doing real work, and it is worth reading closely before assuming the case controls every code-enforcement dispute. The Maxons argued the proceeding was quasi-criminal because the township could have sought a fine of up to $500 per day. The court rejected that argument specifically because the township did not pursue a fine, and said the township's decision to seek only prospective injunctive relief confirmed the suit was civil. So a Michigan resident facing an injunction to bring a property back into compliance sits squarely inside the holding and has no suppression remedy. A resident facing a punitive monetary penalty instead sits outside the facts the court decided; the opinion's own quasi-criminal analysis leaves that question open rather than resolving it.

Hunting, Fishing, and Wildlife: Michigan's Drone Restrictions

Michigan bars using a drone in connection with hunting or fishing in two overlapping statutes. MCL 324.40111c prohibits taking game or fish using an unmanned vehicle or unmanned device that uses aerodynamic forces to achieve flight, a direct ban on drone-assisted hunting. MCL 324.40112 separately bars using a drone or other unmanned device to disturb or affect animal or fish behavior in order to hinder or prevent another person's lawful hunting or fishing, with escalating misdemeanor penalties: up to 93 days and $500 to $1,000 for a first offense, rising to a year and $1,000 to $2,500 for repeat violations.

Michigan's Department of Natural Resources takes the position that recovering an already-downed deer, elk, or bear by drone is itself a prohibited 'take' under MCL 324.40111c, not a permitted exception. Its published hunting regulations state that using a drone to attempt to locate or recover game, either dead or wounded, is an act that falls within that definition, and the Sixth Circuit quoted that guidance when it reviewed the ban.

That interpretation survived a federal challenge. Drone-recovery company Drone Deer Recovery, its founder Mike Yoder, and a hunter sued the director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, arguing the statute as applied to them violated the First Amendment. The district court dismissed the complaint at the pleading stage under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), and on July 31, 2025 the Sixth Circuit affirmed in Yoder v. Bowen, No. 24-1593, holding that the plaintiffs had standing but failed to state a claim on which relief can be granted. The case never reached discovery. As Michigan law stands after that decision, there is no drone-recovery exception.

Shooting Down a Drone Is a Federal Crime

As in every state, shooting down or otherwise disabling a drone in Michigan is a federal felony, not a matter Michigan law can override. The FAA treats drones as aircraft within the National Airspace System, so 18 U.S.C. § 32 applies: willfully damaging, destroying, or disabling a drone carries up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000, plus loss of Second Amendment rights under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) upon conviction. This is true even for a drone hovering low over a Michigan homeowner's own yard, because the FAA, not the landowner, controls the airspace. No state has passed a law authorizing a landowner to shoot down a drone as a matter of right, and Michigan is no exception.

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